John Kerry acknowledges failures over Israeli-Palestinian peace process

The Guardian - Thursday 23rd May, 2013

John Kerry , has acknowledged years of disappointment over the Israeli-Palestinian peace process at the start of his fourth recent visit to the area, but added that he hoped to confound sceptics and cynics.Kerry met the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, and the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, and won strong support for his peace mission from the British foreign secretary, William ...

Syria conflict uproots a half-million Palestinians

WHP CBS 21 - Thursday 23rd May, 2013

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — Syria's fighting has uprooted more than half of the country's 530,000 Palestinians — descendants of refugees from a Mideast conflict half a century ago — and their situation is becoming increasingly desperate, the head of a U.N. aid agency said Thursday.The Palestinians in Syria are particularly vulnerable because of their refugee status, ...

Israeli Military Road Graders Cross into Gaza Strip

Prensa Latina - Thursday 23rd May, 2013

Gaza, May 23 (Prensa Latina) Israeli soldiers driving road graders crossed the Gaza strip demarcation line at Khan Younis, said Palestinian witnesses. The heavy engineering vehicles advanced several hundred meters and their crew began firing, witnesses told the Maan news agency. In recent weeks, Israeli armored vehicles had approached but not crossed the border, site of a sea-ground and air ...

How Lebanons Palestinians Are Being Pulled Into Syrias War

OpEdNews - Thursday 23rd May, 2013

Refugee Camps as War Zones How Lebanon's Palestinians Are Being Pulled Into Syria's War by FRANKLIN LAMB Homs Palestinian Refugee Camp Historically, Palestinian refugees, wherever they have sought temporary sanctuary following the ethnic cleansing of their country by the 19th century Zionist colonial enterprise, and pending their return to Palestine, have insisted on ...

Kerry stops for shwarma after meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas

New York Post - Thursday 23rd May, 2013

RAMALLAH, West Bank - Secretary of State John Kerry says he's all in for Palestinian shwarma.Kerry chomped one of the meat sandwiches after meeting Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank.Asked what toppings he wanted, Kerry said, quote, "I want everything. I'm all in."After the first bite, Kerry declared, "Fantastic."Kerry has been promoting ...

Kerry samples Palestinian sweets shawarma

Jerusalem Post - Thursday 23rd May, 2013

RAMALLAH, West Bank) - US Secretary of State John Kerry stepped off the diplomatic track on Thursday and onto a West Bank street where he sampled a shawarma sandwich and a pistachio-sprinkled Palestinian sweet.In a rare gesture for a US secretary of state - but a staple of US political campaigns - Kerry dropped by the Samer Restaurant in the Palestinian city of Ramallah to enjoy typical ...

Israel Corp. mulling closure of Better Place

Globes - Thursday 23rd May, 2013

ILCO ), Better Place's main investor, on the electric car venture's future, and whether or not it will continue will depend upon its ability to continue raising cash. In that regard, Idan Ofer, who controls Israel Corp., recently approached potential investors. Better Place said in response to the report, "In the past few months Better Place has continued its many efforts to ...

Disputed deaths in Palestinian territories

The Guardian - Thursday 23rd May, 2013

Palestinian woman in the West Bank village of Bili'in died following a protest in which Israeli soldiers fired teargas . According to witnesses, Jawaher Abu Rahma collapsed after inhaling the gas, vomiting, convulsing and foaming at the mouth. After Palestinian leaders described her death as a war crime, anonymous IDF sources briefed the Israeli media to suggest she was not present at the ...

No-drama counter-terrorism what Ingrid Loyau-Kennett can teach America

War in Context - Thursday 23rd May, 2013

Behind most acts of political violence there are statements that the perpetrators imagine can be heard by no other means. Sometimes, all that de-escalation requires is simply to listen to whatever they have to say. Politicians and some security experts often argue that to listen to terrorists is to capitulate to terrorism — that it is akin to being manipulated by a child’s tantrum ...

Tom Engelhardt The biggest criminal enterprise in history

War in Context - Thursday 23rd May, 2013

treacherous waters off Alaska. Call it irony, if you will, or call it a nightmare, but Big Oil evidently has no qualms about making its next set of profits directly off melting the planet. Its top executives continue to plan their futures (and so ours), knowing that their extremely profitable acts are destroying the very habitat, the very temperature range that for so long made life comfortable ...

Woolwich attacker named ‘Mujahid’ was known to banned Islamist organisation Al Muhajiroun

War in Context - Thursday 23rd May, 2013

has learned. Anjem Choudary, the former leader of the group, Al Muhajiroun, confirmed that he had known the man who was seen on video in the immediate aftermath of yesterday’s horrific killing waving a cleaver with bloodied hands and making political statements. Details began to emerge as Prime Minister David Cameron chaired a meeting of the Government emergency committee Cobra at 10 ...

UK provided more support for CIA rendition flights than thought says study

War in Context - Thursday 23rd May, 2013

The UK’s support for the CIA’s global rendition programme after the September 11 terrorist attacks on the US was far more substantial than has previously been recognised, according to a new research project that draws on a vast number of publicly available data and documentation. Evidence gathered by The Rendition Project - ...

Iran presidential campaign begins without two big names

War in Context - Thursday 23rd May, 2013

barred from running in next month's presidential election, face a new challenge: persuading shocked and skeptical Iranians to turn out to vote. With the field of hopefuls clear, the mostly conservative nominees whose candidacies were approved by Iran's Guardian Council officially launched their campaigns Wednesday, apparently free from the challenges of the most talked-about ...

Amnesty Both Israel Hamas guilty of war crimes

Jerusalem Post - Thursday 23rd May, 2013

Both Israel and Hamas committed war crimes and other violations of international humanitarian law during Operation Pillar of Defense in Gaza in November of last year, Amnesty International concluded in a report released on ...

Israel is fighting a regional war in Syria

RT - Thursday 23rd May, 2013

The changing internal situation in Syria is putting a new set of plans into motion, which involve Israeli aggression against Syria. Not only have the US and its allies been trying to militarily buttress the retreating anti-government militias, but now they aim to create a new phase in the conflict where states start asserting leverage against Syria in place of the weakening anti-government ...

Kerry Embarks on Meetings with Israeli and Palestinian Officials

New York Times - Thursday 23rd May, 2013

JERUSALEM -- As he embarked on another round of meetings with Israeli and Palestinian leaders on Thursday in an effort to revitalize the peace process, Secretary of State John Kerry acknowledged the doubts being expressed on both sides over his chances of ...

Under Hamas No More Coed Classes in Gaza

The Atlantic - Thursday 23rd May, 2013

Teachers stand among school girls at al-Qahera school in Gaza City on April 2, 2013. (Mohammed Salem/Reuters) A community of animals elects its new king. The candidates are a wily green crocodile who makes grandiose promises and a yellow lion whose father was the previous king. In the end, the lion is too confident that he will win and loses the elections to the mendacious ...

Luzon names Israel squad for home finals

UEFA - Thursday 23rd May, 2013

"This is a hard day for me," said coach Guy Luzon after naming his final 23-man squad for this summer's UEFA European Under-21 Championship on home ...

Kerry detours for Palestinian shwarma

Lexington Herald-Leader - Thursday 23rd May, 2013

RAMALLAH, West Bank - Secretary of State John Kerry says he's all in for Palestinian shwarma.Kerry chomped one of the meat sandwiches after meeting Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank.Asked what toppings he wanted, Kerry said, quote, "I want everything. I'm all in."After the first bite, Kerry declared, "Fantastic."Kerry has been promoting ...

Palestinian protests greet Kerry in Ramallah

Jerusalem Post - Thursday 23rd May, 2013

resuming the peace talks with Israel.As Kerry arrived in Ramallah, dozens of Palestinians staged a protest outside Abbas's office, condemning Washington's "bias" in favor of ...

Father of Muhammad al-Dura rebukes Israeli report on sons death

The Guardian - Thursday 23rd May, 2013

Gaza , where crumbling tombstones nestle in the sand amid windblown rubbish, Jamal al-Dura crouched at the grave of his son Muhammed to recite the Muslim prayer for the dead. With the youngest of his 11 children at his side, he took his hands from his face, laid them on the marble slab and looked up, a bitter as well as a bereaved ...

AP Interview Chief of UN aid agency says Syria fighting has uprooted most Palestinians there

Canada.com - Thursday 23rd May, 2013

FILE - In this Aug. 6, 2012 file photo, Mahmoud, a 21-year-old Palestinian resident of Syria, rests in a field hospital after he was found with three gunshot wounds in the town of Anadan on the outskirts of Aleppo, Syria. Mahmoud, who would give only one name, described being the only survivor of a massacre in which he and 10 other men were blindfolded, beaten and sprayed with bullets. ...